Owen Canfield: Anticipating corned beef and cabbage

Published 1:00 am, Sunday, March 12, 2017

Recently, while driving, “It’s a Great Day for the Irish” popped up on the radio. I sang right along. As St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) approaches, we’ll be hearing more and more Irish tunes. I say, Hooray. Irish music sends me.

Every time I hear, “Did Your Mother Come from Ireland?” I think of my father, who would sing that song on St. Pat’s Day and invariably become teary-eyed. He had a deep voice but not a good singing voice, and he just boomed it out. His mother was an immigrant from Ireland. They were quite poor, and I often heard Dad refer to his mother, who held her large family together with her “fighting Irish heart.”

Mother was not Irish, but she was a natural singer (and musician – piano and guitar) and though she has been gone these many years, I can close my eyes and hear her sweet voice rendering “Rose of Tralee” as she moved about the kitchen. I guess everybody’s favorite is “Danny Boy” and she sang that like nobody’s business.

My Irish friend, Maureen Murphy Pugsley, a Torrington native, told me a story about marching in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade many decades ago. We communicate frequently on the phone.

“I was a student at New Rochelle at the time, a freshman,” she recalled. “Mimi (Her best friend and classmate Mimi Hubbard, also of Torrington) and I took the train to the city because we thought it would be fun to march. It was exciting. The stripes on Fifth Avenue were painted green, of course. And it was fun, except . . . well, I had high heels on. I made it but when it was over my feet were killing me.”

Maureen and her sister, Eileen Mooney, both former school teachers, live in San Pedro. Both gained considerable attention as swimmers in Connecticut and Eileen went on to do great things in swimming and kayaking on the college level. She still kayaks with a friend every weekend.

But this time of year, she is much in demand as an Irish step dancer. I’ve seen her dance and B’gorrah, there are none better than Eileen Mooney.

My own St. Patrick’s celebration has become a family tradition. This year, we’ll celebrate on Saturday the 18th, and my mouth is watering as I think of it. No one, and I mean no one, prepares corned beef and cabbage as wonderfully as my sister Marjorie Johnson.

For the past 10 years or so, Marge and husband Bob have invited me to join another sister, Sandy Friday, her husband Dick – yes, the Dick Friday who was elected Torrington’s city treasurer 20 times (40 years), my son Steve and sometimes assorted grandchildren for CB&C.

Sometimes there is enough left over so that various guests can take some home. I’ve found, though, that doesn’t really work for me, because I have it for supper. How that woman can cook.

As I write this on Friday, Hartford has already had its big parade. The Irish will strut their stuff today in New Haven.